In Paris, Students Follow U.S. Election

PARIS, France—For only the second time in the 80 years since its inception, the straw vote at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris was wrong. Starting on Oct. 2, the bar kept a tally of its American patrons’ support for George W. Bush or John F. Kerry.

The final tally: 242 for Bush and 419 for Kerry.

Americans living, working or studying in Paris have crowded into Harry’s since 1923 to drink champagne and wait anxiously for the results of the presidential elections.

As the wee hours of the morning approached in Paris yesterday, the election was still too close to call. Despite the lack of a firm judgment, many Parisians awoke to find that George W. Bush was the likely winner.

“I was scared and afraid, but I expected the results,” said Nadia Ratsinandresy, a musicology student at the Sorbonne. “It wasn’t a big surprise. I pretty much knew it and now I have no hope. It’s done and we just have to go back to work and school.”

The French press has followed the American election closely with most newspapers and television stations providing extensive coverage.

Katie M. Sabo, a junior at Reed College in Portland, Oregon said she found the media coverage to be slightly skewed. “The French media play up the evangelism thing. They like to show people praying and saluting American flags,” she said.

The Parisians Sabo has encountered have also been interested in the election. “Everyone asks who I voted for,” she said.

Nicholas P. Hanneman, a junior at Boston College, disagreed with Sabo’s sentiments about the French media. “I think we are getting a lot less biased view of the election,” he said. The French “can all see how awful [Bush] is and yet the people in the United States who are being directly affected by his policies aren’t doing anything.”

While both French citizens and Americans residing in Paris hold an overwhelming anti-Bush sentiment, a handful of Republicans rejoiced at Bush’s re-election.

“I am really glad it’s over,” said Republican Christina L. Hazel, a senior at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. “I am happy that America came out and voted in record numbers.”

Parisian resident Cecile Pigeon criticized the need for international observers at the United States election. “[International observers] are only supposed to be necessary for dictatorial regimes, not democratic ones,” she said. “I don’t understand the American system. I don’t know how it is supposed to be democratic.”

Others lamented Bush’s victory.

“I am sorry that George Bush was elected. I am just waiting to see the future,” said Jean-Gabriel Leturcq, an Art History professor at the French university Ecole du Louvre. “[French people] don’t understand Bush. We don’t understand the way that Bush talks about God in politics. In France, religion is outside of politics.”

And the outcome of the election could increase tensions between the French and Americans, Pigeon said.

“The fraction of French people who supported Bush since the last election has diminished,” Pigeon said. “We know him now, whereas we didn’t four years ago. I don’t think the French will protest [his re-election] much, but I fear that there will be more hostility towards Americans.”

Now that the official result has begun to set in, the feeling among many Americans in Paris is that of helplessness and disappointment. “People were able to protest in the United States. Here, we’re told not to,” said Amna Shamim, a junior at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

Sabo echoed Shamim’s statements. “I’m very disappointed. I can’t believe people would actually vote for Bush. I’m ashamed to be an American in Paris,” she said.

—Staff writer Adam P. Schneider can be reached at aschneid@fas.harvard.edu.